| | | | |  | | By Eli Okun | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | | IN MEMORIAM — “Ethel Kennedy, matriarch of family political dynasty, dies at 96,” by the Boston Globe’s Joseph Kahn: She was “one of the last living links to the Camelot era.”
|  FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said misinformation hasn't been as bad as after Hurricane Helene. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo | STURM UND DRANG — Hurricane Milton has knocked Florida for a loop and left a trail of damage across the state. But early indicators suggest that the state was spared from the direst projections, especially devastating storm surges in the heavily populated Tampa Bay area. Flooding did hit barrier islands and the Sarasota area hard, while tornadoes left at least five people dead and millions remain without power. Much of the damage, which is expected to be major from the tornadoes in particular, has yet to be assessed. The recovery effort will be extensive. “The storm was significant, but thankfully, this was not the worst-case scenario,” Gov. RON DeSANTIS said today, Gary Fineout reports from Tallahassee. FEMA Administrator DEANNE CRISWELL said the evacuation orders had saved lives, and Tampa Mayor JANE CASTOR praised the federal response. Criswell also hailed local leaders for helping tamp down misinformation to a lower level than after Hurricane Helene. President JOE BIDEN urged Floridians still in the affected areas to shelter in place and wait for help until it’s safer to venture out. He spoke with DeSantis, Sen. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) and Rep. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-Fla.) this morning, and the White House said he’ll deliver public remarks at 2 p.m. Stunning: “FEMA spent nearly half its disaster budget in just 8 days,” by Thomas Frank and Anne Mulkern: “Eight days into the fiscal year, the federal government has spent nearly half the disaster relief that Congress has allocated for the next 12 months. … [That] soon will force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to restrict spending unless Congress approves additional funding.” INFLATION NATION — The latest consumer price index report showed a bit of a mixed bag for inflation, which continues to be one of the leading issues animating voters this election: Price increases are still ticking down, though not as quickly as economists hoped. The CPI clocked annual inflation at 2.4 percent in September, with the monthly increase at 0.2 percent. That was down from August’s 2.5 percent pace — and, notably, the coolest rate since Biden’s second month in office — but a tick above predictions. Energy costs fell significantly, but food prices pushed the numbers higher. The Labor Department statistics also showed new unemployment claims unexpectedly jumping to their highest levels in more than a year, thanks in part to fallout from Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike. More from the NYT The fairly good news “is a remarkable victory for both Biden and [Fed Chair JEROME] POWELL,” Victoria Guida writes. The economy is holding fairly strong, the labor market has proven resilient, and the fight against inflation is coming to a close. But “consumers still feel squeezed by higher prices,” and VP KAMALA HARRIS hasn’t benefited as much from the positive data as she might have hoped. Meanwhile, WSJ’s Greg Ip writes that interest rates could be higher in the long run if DONALD TRUMP wins and Republicans cut taxes. SURVEY SAYS — Republicans flipping the Senate looks closer to reality than ever thanks to a strong set of polls from NYT/Siena this morning, which find Sen. JON TESTER (D-Mont.) down by 7 points to TIM SHEEHY, as he struggles to outrun the state’s shifting partisan makeup. Democrats may in fact have a better shot with Rep. COLIN ALLRED in Texas, but he still trails GOP Sen. TED CRUZ by 4 points. And Scott has a comfortable 9-point lead in his reelection bid. As Nate Cohn notes, Democrats might have to hope for a shocker in Nebraska. Tester isn’t the party’s only vulnerability: Sen. SHERROD BROWN (D-Ohio) has a 1-point advantage, WaPo finds. (Trump leads by 6 in the state, while one-quarter of Ohioans have fallen for baseless conspiracy theories about Haitians eating pets.) Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at eokun@politico.com.
| | | | A message from United for Democracy: Banning IVF, abortion, and many types of contraception. Creating a national pregnancy registry. Criminalizing porn. Making you pay more for healthcare and housing. Sound like a nightmare? No - it's Project 2025. And if Trump is elected, it will be the MAGA movement's dream that the corrupt Supreme Court justices made come true. But we can vote to stop them – learn more at Project2025.wtf. | | | | | 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | |  As Donald Trump makes inroads with young Black and Latino men, Democrats are worrying about the Blue Wall. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1. IS THE VIBE SHIFT REAL? Some stronger recent polling for Trump, a shift in prediction markets — and Democrats’ penchant for worrying — have yielded a spate of coverage asking whether the tides are tilting in the former president’s direction. Many Democrats are growing worried about cracks in the Blue Wall as Harris’ momentum and cash advantages haven’t been able to give her a clear lead, Axios’ Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei report. There are other signs of concern for Dems: Republicans for Harris are struggling to break through to voters with Jan. 6 messaging, NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson reports. Harris is losing ground with young Latino men in Nevada, USA Today’s Rebecca Morin reports from North Las Vegas. Siren from Nevada: The culinary union tells Adrian Carrasquillo for POLITICO Magazine that they think Trump would win the state if the election were held today, though they think Harris will improve by November. And as Trump makes inroads with young Black and Latino men, he’s explicitly leaning on identity politics-based appeals of grievance, NYT’s Lisa Lerer and Michael Gold report, broadening anti-immigrant rhetoric beyond its usual white audience. As we wrote in this morning’s Playbook, the Trump campaign is working hard to win the bro vote. And WaPo’s Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker capture that an aggressive, macho culture has infused Trump’s campaign inside and out. Notable quotable: “We are going to beat the reporters into retardation!” said JAMES BLAIR, a Trump get-out-the-vote leader, about refuting stories questioning the campaign’s ground game, per the Post. 2. ON THE FLIP SIDE: As WaPo notes, the bro vibe risks alienating as many women as it attracts men. Trump’s campaign has also struggled mightily with a plunge in small-dollar donations, AP’s Dan Merica, Aaron Kessler and Richard Lardner report. Aggressive GOP pitches have turned off donors, and the party is worried about longer-term financial struggles as Democrats outclass them in fundraising. Trump is forced to rely more on megadonors, undercutting his populist rhetoric. Harris hopes she can get a boost from BARACK OBAMA, who will seek to bottle his old campaign magic and winning coalition as he hits the trail today in Pittsburgh, NBC’s Sahil Kapur and Yamiche Alcindor report from Scranton. BILL CLINTON is also fanning out across swing states starting this weekend, with a focus on rural voters, CNN’s Isaac Dovere reports. Mark your calendars: With Trump refusing to participate in a CNN debate, Harris instead will take part in a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania on Oct. 23. The bigger picture is that, as the polling aggregates and models indicate, an extremely tight presidential race is close to a jump ball now — as Wall Street knows, indicated by its reluctance to place bets, Bloomberg’s Esha Dey and Natalia Kniazhevich report.
| | | | A message from United for Democracy: Project 2025 is a policy blueprint created by the far-right Heritage Foundation meant to gut America’s system of checks and balances. Their goal? Take control of the government… and our lives.
If MAGA extremists win this fall, they will pursue Project 2025 policies like banning IVF and setting up a national abortion and pregnancy registry to force states to report abortion data. While raising taxes on middle-class Americans, they’ll also remove many environmental protections so companies can pollute our air, soil, and water with known cancer-causing toxic chemicals.
You think the Courts will save us?! LOL. The six MAGA Supreme Court Justices are already implementing some of Project 2025’s worst ideas.
In fact, they already deemed a president immune from all criminal acts they deem “official,” and stripped women of their reproductive freedom.
Learn more at Project2025.wtf, before it’s too late.
Paid for by United for Democracy. | | | 3. DEMOCRACY WATCH: Georgia’s set of drastic, last-minute election rules are upending the state’s election administrators at the last minute, raising questions about whether they can actually be met and whether election security will be threatened, NOTUS’ Ben Mause reports from Gwinnett County. Many offices are scrambling to find enough staffers and volunteers to complete a full hand count, as Trump allies on the state board have newly required. With court challenges still pending, election officials are uncertain of how to prepare, though they say they’ll comply with the rules. And “[i]ronically, the new regulations could mean more hands on ballots and a greater chance the chain of custody gets broken.” 4. THE STAKES FOR NOVEMBER: “Kamala Harris win may boost US effort to rein in ‘junk fees’ levied on consumers,” by Reuters’ Makailah Gause and Pete Schroeder: “A crackdown by the U.S. consumer finance watchdog on hidden or excessive financial fees could expand to target billions of dollars in mortgage, credit reporting and other fees if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election. … According to a CFPB official and a second regulatory source, the CFPB's next top targets include mortgage closing costs and business-to-business fees that trickle down to customers, in particular borrower credit-score fees.” 5. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Gulf states are trying to get the U.S. to persuade Israel not to attack Iranian oil sites, Reuters’ Samia Nakhoul, Parisa Hafezi and Pesha Magid scooped. They also told the Biden administration they won’t allow Israel to use their airspace for retaliatory attacks. Despite Biden’s call with Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU yesterday, the U.S. is still struggling to exert sway over Israel’s decision-making, though Bloomberg’s Henry Meyer and Dan Williams report that the U.S. is “proposing a fresh round of economic sanctions” on Iran. 6. DOWN BALLOT: “Democrats warn these races you aren’t watching are in jeopardy,” by Madison Fernandez: “In a memo first shared with POLITICO, the DLCC says its fundraising — less than four weeks out from Election Day — is still far short of its $60 million election budget. The group says it needs another $20 million for television advertising; $4 million for mailers; $2 million for texting and digital; and $200,000 for canvassing. Without that money, the committee warns, wins at the federal level could still come with a slew of losses down-ballot.” 7. LET THE SUNSHINE IN: “Lawmakers spending even more in 2024 under receipt-free expense program,” by WaPo’s Jackie Alemany and Clara Ence Morse: “House lawmakers expensed at least $2.5 million under a program that allows them to be reimbursed for their spending without submitting receipts through the first five months of 2024, over $120,000 more than they expensed during the same period last year … The program’s top spenders in the first five months of 2024 include Reps. JIM BAIRD (R-Ind.) … and VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-Tex.), NANCY MACE (R-S.C.), NANETTE BARRAGÁN (D-Calif.) and JACK BERGMAN (R-Mich.).”
| | | | | PLAYBOOKERS | | Larry Hogan is facing new conflict-of-interest questions. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss reached a settlement in their defamation suit against The Gateway Pundit. Kevin Faulconer wants to give San Diego Republicans a comeback. JD Vance warned that Kamala Harris could make Liz Cheney secretary of Defense or State. Boris Johnson doesn’t think Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the Spanish Cultural Center yesterday for an event focused on sports diplomacy, including policy needs for the upcoming World Cup and Olympics in the U.S.: Katherine DeStefano, Jonatan Giráldez, Danita Johnson, Lindsay Krasnoff, Andrés Muntaner, Travis Murphy, Daniel Mickelson, Spanish Ambassador Ángeles Moreno, Brendon Plack, Nicole Preston, Ibrahim Sagna, Alex Sopko, Christina Unkel and Matteo Zuretti. — SPOTTED at a Washington AI Network event yesterday on health care in the age of AI at the House at 1229, where Tammy Haddad interviewed Ted Leonsis and Grant Verstandig: Alex Lasry, Dini Ajmani, Nicoletta Giordani, Keenan Austin Reed, Tiffany Moore, Pamela Brown, Julian Ramirez, Varun Krovi, Tizzy Brown, Nkechi Nneji, Carol Melton, T.W. Arrighi, Tina Anthony, Yisroel Brumer, Barry Beck, Jessica Nigro, Jason Liang, Faith Eischen, Emily Kingsland, Dan Meyers, Hillary Richonne, Tara Rigler, Govind Shivkumar, Angeli Chawla and Tracy Van Grack. TRANSITION — Joshua Gross is joining the South Carolina Department of Education as a program manager. He previously spent 14 years as a deputy chief of staff/legislative director for Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.). Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Mike DeBonis, deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our politics and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
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